About the research programme
The aim Syntax and Semantics (SynSem) is to promote advances in formally oriented syntax and semantics with a view to improved models and methods of language understanding.
On the empirical side, the main focus is on Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages as well as Latin and Greek.
Key areas of interest include the relationship between linguistic code and context, grammar formalisms uniting theoretical and computational interest, and the development and deployment of resources for language processing and linguistics.
Participants
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Bergljot Behrens (Translation Studies, Pragmatics and Semantics, ILOS)
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Atle Grønn (Russian, Formal Semantics, ILOS)
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Dag Haug (Greek and Latin, Formal Semantics, Computational Linguistics, IFIKK)
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Hans Petter Helland (French, Syntax, ILOS)
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Ida Larsson (Swedish, Syntax, ILN)
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Øystein Linnebo (Philosophy of Language, IFIKK)
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Helge Lødrup (Norwegian, Syntax, ILN)
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Jan Tore Lønning (Formal Semantics, Computational Linguistics, IFI)
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Stephan Oepen (Language Technology, Computational Linguistics, IFI)
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Kjell Johan Sæbø (German, Formal Semantics, ILOS)
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Lilja Øvrelid (Language Technology, Computational Linguistics, IFI)
(Postdoctoral) Researchers
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Silje Susanne Alvestad (ILOS, affiliated)
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Matthew Gotham (IFIKK)
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Kari Kinn (ILN, affiliated)
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Jozina Vander Klok (ILN, affiliated)
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Alexandra Spalek (ILOS)
PhD candidates
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Elena Callegari (ILOS)
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Murhaf Fares (IFI)
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Espen Johan Klævik-Pettersen (ILOS, affiliated)
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Riccardo Pulicani (ILOS)
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Per Erik Solberg (IFIKK, affiliated)
Events
Mini-seminar on scope and (information) structure
In connection with PhD candidate Riccardo Pulicani’s midway evaluation, there will be a one-day mini-seminar on interactions between information structure, sentence structure and operator scope. See the program below and be welcome!
Time and place: June 7, 2019 10:15 AM – 4:30 PM, University of Oslo (P. A. Munchs hus, seminarrom 5)
Program
Friday 7 June 2019
- Elena Callegari: Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD) and PPs: does it move, does it not?
- Kriszta Szendrői (University College London): Investigating quantifer scope judgments in children and adults: an overview
- Carlo Cecchetto (CNRS, Paris 8)Labeling, (un)probed movement and Quantifier Raising (QR)
- Riccardo Pulicani: Nobody likes "everyone" (but most people like lists)
- Kjell Johan Sæbø: A critical review of Hemforth and Konieczny (2019)
- General round of discussion
Organizer
Kjell Johan Sæbø
Workshop on Approaches to Coercion and Polysemy (CoPo 2017)
A forum that will enable comparison of lexical, compositional and pragmatic approaches, and interaction between people coming from formal semantics, pragmatics and computational linguistics backgrounds.
Time and place: Nov. 20, 2017 9:30 AM – Nov. 21, 2017 1:00 PM, University of Oslo (Niels Treschows hus)
Description
The phenomenon of coercion, where the interpretation of an expression seems to change depending on another expression that it stands in a predication or modification relationship with (e.g. ‘Fred began a book / began an essay / finished his drink / finished the kitchen / is a good boy / is a good pianist / froze the water / froze the bottle / has red hair / eats red meat / drinks coffee / drank two coffees’) is widespread and has often been remarked on within formal semantics, pragmatics and computational linguistics (Asher 2011, Egg 2003, Nunberg 1979, Piñango&Deo 2016, Pustejovsky 1995, Recanati 2004). However, it remains not well-understood, especially as regards the following questions:
- To what extent do these examples represent a unified phenomenon, and what constrains the availability of these kinds of enriched interpretations?
- What do these examples tell us about the nature of the lexicon, and the nature of predication?
- To what extent do we need lexical meaning to be context-dependent?
- To what extent do we need a more sophisticated compositional system than is commonly assumed in formal semantics?
- How can the coerced interpretation be implemented?
We wish to create a forum that will enable comparison of lexical, compositional and pragmatic approaches to these questions, and interaction between people coming from formal semantics, pragmatics and computational linguistics backgrounds. We are particularly interested in the interaction between coercion and the wider issue of polysemy, where a word may have more than one closely-related meaning.
Invited speakers
- Nicholas Asher (CNRS/IRIT)
- Robin Cooper (University of Gothenburg)
Programme
Monday 20 November 2017
- Katherine Fraser (University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU): Polysemy of an English posture verb: A Case Study of Non-literal Meaning
- Patrick Murphy (University of Toronto): I'm done my homework: Complement Coercion and Aspectual Adjectives in Canadian English
- Jan Wiślicki (University of Warsaw): Dispensing with Unwanted Polysemy: Deriving verbal idioms by coercive typing
- Invited talk: Nicholas Asher (Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse): Type presuppositions and fine grained types: from coercion to co-composition and a finer grained look at determiners
- Julia Lukassek (Universität Tübingen): Coercion and Underspecification Integrated: The State-Event-Ambiguity of Aspectual Verbs
- Markus Egg (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin): Semelfactives
- Bryan Leferman (University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU): The Aspectual Uniformity of Evaluative Adjectives
- Emmanuele Chersoni, Alessandro Lenci & Philippe Blache (Aix-Marseille University): Modeling the Compositional Cost of Logical Metonymies with Distributional Semantics
- Dinner at Café Christiania (Nedre Vollgate 19) FYI: We meet at the main entrance of Niels Treschows hus at 18h
Tuesday 21 November 2017
- Invited talk: Robin Cooper (University of Gothenburg): Coercion in Languages in Flux
- Peter Sutton & Hana Filip (Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf): Coercion: Container, Contents and Measure Readings
- Stergios Chatzikyriakidis (University of Gothenburg) & Zhaohui Luo (Royal Holloway, University of London): Identity Criteria of CNs: Quantification and Copredication
- Eriko Kinoshita, Koji Mineshima and Daisuke Bekki (Ochanomizu University): Coercion as Proof Search in Dependent Type Semantics
- Alexandra Spalek & Matthew Gotham (University of Oslo)Closing Comments and Discussion
Organizer
Alexandra Spalek and Matthew Gotham
Lexical semantics and modern type theory
SynSem will be organizing a reading group on lexical semantics and modern type theory. We will have four meetings, all of which take place on Mondays 15:00-16:00 in PAM 389.
Time:
Below you find the schedule and papers to read.
- May 4 - Asher/Pustejovsky: The Metaphysics of Words in Context
- May 18 - Asher/Pustejovsky: A Type Composition Logic for Generative Lexicon
- June 1 - Luo: Type-theoretical semantics with coercive subtyping and Chatzikyriakidis and Luo: Adjectives in a Modern Type-Theoretical Setting
- June 15: Asher: Types, meanings and coercions in lexical semantics
* Actually, this 5 years younger, thoroughly revised version might be easier to relate to: Asher and Pustejovsky (2005) Word Meaning and Commonsense Metaphysics
Workshop at Sevletunet, Numedal, April 2015
From Friday, April 17, to Sunday, April 19, 2015, nine SynSem-icians held a workshop at Sevletunet in scenic and historic Numedal.
SynSem lunch seminar
The SynSem lunch seminar meets on Fridays 12:00. The venue is Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor. Bring your own lunchbox!
Time: 9. January - 12. June 2015.
- 9 January
Atle Grønn (1) and Dag Haug (2): Speculations on remoteness operators and the counterfactual 'would' (1); Indefinite-interrogative ambiguities (2) - 16 January
Christine Meklenborg Salvesen: Traces of History - 23 January
Elena Callegari: Word Order in the Slavic, Germanic and Romance Left Periphery - 30 January
Marius Jøhndal [NB! PAM møterom 389]: Clausal structure and nonfinite complements in Latin - 6 February
Per Erik Solberg: The Latin long-distance reflexive, what it isn't and what it might be - 13 February
Elena Callegari [NB! PAM møterom 389]: Locality failures in the Left Periphery - 20 February
Informal lunch & discussion with colleagues, Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor. Bring your own lunchbox! - 27 February
Dag Haug: Feature sharing in agreement - 6 March
Alexandra Spalek: Verb Meaning in Composition: Accounting for the rich combinatorial paradigm of change of state verbs in Spanish - 13 March
Our suggestion: David Adger's talk at 13.15 PAM2 - 20 March
Daniel Altshuler & Dag Haug [NB! PAM møterom 389]: Informal discussion of their new joint project - 27 March
Informal lunch & discussion with colleagues. Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor. Bring your own lunchbox! - 10 April
Informal lunch & discussion with colleagues. Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor. Bring your own lunchbox! - 17 April
SynSem seminar Friday-Sunday: Sevletunet, Numedal - 24 April
Informal lunch & discussion with colleagues. Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor. Bring your own lunchbox! - 1 May
- 8 May
Marianne Hobæk Haff & Helge Lødrup: French has (even more) long passives - 15 May
Informal lunch & discussion with colleagues. Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor. Bring your own lunchbox! - 22 May
Informal lunch & discussion with colleagues. Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor. Bring your own lunchbox! - 29 May
Informal lunch & discussion with colleagues. Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor. Bring your own lunchbox! - 5 June
Informal lunch & discussion with colleagues. Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor. Bring your own lunchbox! - 12 June
Summer seminar (before garden party) [NB! New room: PAM 489.]On CAS (Dag Haug)